Reddit reviews A Box of Rain: Lyrics: 1965-1993

Taken from The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.

In his A box of Rain, Hunter wrote:

>"Nobody ever asked me the meaning of this song (China Cat Sunflower). People just seem to know exactly what I'm talking about. It's good that a few things in this world are clear to all of us." (source: A Box of Rain)

And from Conversations with the Dead Hunter says,

>"I think of germ of China Cat Sunflower came in Mexico, on Lake Chapala. I don't think any of the words came, exactly-the rhymes came.
I had a cat sitting on my belly, and was in a rather hypersensitive state, and I followed this cat out to-I believe it was Neptune-and there were rainbows across Neptune and cats marching across the rainbow. This cat took me in all these cat places; there's some essence of that in the song." (source: Conversations with the Dead)